Author: Luigi Guarino

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3rd Governing Body meeting of the ITPGRFA wrapped up

Following two days of lengthy procedural discussions regarding the establishment of contact groups on the funding strategy and/or compliance, and the eventual agreement to establish both, the Governing Body managed to make good progress going through its heavy agenda. Delegates agreed to: a set of outcomes for implementation of the funding strategy, including a financial target of US$116 million for the period July 2009 to December 2014; a resolution on implementation of the MLS, including setting up an intersessional advisory committee on implementation issues; a resolution on farmers’ rights; and procedures for the Third Party Beneficiary. They also adopted the work programme and budget for the next biennium; agreed to the urgent need to finalize the outstanding financial rules at GB 4; and established intersessional processes to finalize compliance procedures by GB 4 and review the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA). 1

LATER: Here’s the Treaty’s promotional video.

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Livestock videos on YouTube

FAO’s Animal Genetic Resources Group has a YouTube channel. The latest addition is “Keepers of Genes — India’s pastoralists and their breeds.”

The League of Pastoral People has teamed up with award-winning documentary filmmakers, Moving Images to produce a series of films on pastoralism. Films have proved a very powerful tool for visually transporting policymakers into the situation of pastoralists. The first film in the series, Keepers of Genes, focuses on the role of pastoralists in conserving biodiversity.

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Happy Birthday, Prof. Karl Hammer

And sorry for missing it when it actually came, back in February!

He fundamentally contributed to our present knowledge of cultivated plants’ biodiversity in Cuba, Eastern Europe, Italy, Libya, Oman and Korea. As an enthusiastic researcher heading the Gatersleben Genebank and later heading the Agrobiodiversity Department of Kassel University in Witzenhausen, his scientific work covered a tremendously wide field of research in plant genetic resources, ranging from pollination ecology and taxonomy (e.g. of Aegilops, Agrostemma, Brassica, Datura, Secale, Triticum) to questions of plant domestication, genetic erosion and evaluation, maintenance and utilization of the entire spectrum of plant genetic resources, including underutilized and neglected crops.

Many happy returns! Enjoy your retirement!

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Featured: Economic botany at Kew

Dave Wood reminisces about the old days:

In the “good old days” Kew Gardens had an interest in economic botany — mainly to support crops that could be add value to colonial agriculture. Ramie figures in the fascinating contents of the second volume of the Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew … As an economic botanist I admit to never having heard of some of these species. And this “Bulletin” became “Kew Bulletin” — fine for taxonomists but of little use for economic crop production.

BTW, he also has something to say about the Ethiopian genebank.